OWN START-UP

SmartTeams | 2013-2014

Smart Teams is the new tool for all team sports. A trainer can change teams with the push of a button. This results in on the spot positional and strategic changes during the game. Forcing them to quickly react and act on the dynamic changes within the team and positions.

OWN START-UP

SmartTeams | 2013-2014

Smart Teams is the new tool for all team sports. A trainer can change teams with the push of a button. This results in on the spot positional and strategic changes during the game. Forcing them to quickly react and act on the dynamic changes within the team and positions.

Objective

SmartTeams originated from a first idea of hockeytrainer Stan Huijsmans who wanted a way to train strategic insight in his players. Together with Spinnov we set out to make SmartTeams and treated the project as a start-up. The goal was to create a product that could be sold as part of the SmartGoals brand that Spinnov already worked on. To do this we wanted to have a few sets of SmartTeams to do a Pilot run with different hockeyteams. Next to that we made all commercial material like photographs and videos ourselves to promote SmartTeams. We won the 2nd place in the Dutch Sports Innovation award 2013.

Approach

Several rounds of quick prototyping and testing with different hockey teams allowed us to set the requirements in the beginning of the project. Visibility, comfort and producability were the most important aspects to be tackled. The goal was to do as much as possible ourselves, because our start-up had very little capital.

Prototyping + Testing

The first quick prototypes were made by me in our workplace. When the time had come to scale up the testing we needed more prototypes of a higher durability. Suppliers for the different fabriques were contacted and we found a seamstress that could make the bibs. I provided her with the needed technical drawings and materials and we were able to greatly speed-up the entire process. Several bigger tests were done with different hockey and football teams.

Presentation

We were looking for investors and therefore needed to present ourselves as a professional brand. I was in charge of making all of this material. We had a photoshoot and made a website, flyers, banners and a short teaser.